Physical Computing
Build circuits, solder and learn how to use electronic components and micro-controllers including: Arduino, Particle Photon, Raspberry Pi, Bare Conductive Touch Board, sensors, motors, NeoPixels, DMX, Bluetooth, Kinect and Leap Motion. Create interactive objects that respond to touch, distance, movement, temperature or light.
Our electronics bench in the lab has a set of equipment for soldering electronics, please email us for an induction.
Useful learning resources
Books Getting Started With Arduino 3rd Edition by Massimo Banzi and Michael Shiloh A short and ...
Where to buy components
The following list is of common suppliers, other than eBay... Electronics UK Arduino boards, shie...
Tutorials
How to install libraries
Arduino libraries are collections of code that are designed to provide additional, reusable funct...
Powering an Arduino
How to power an Arduino Here is some resources about powering Arduino or other electronic project...
Using an MPR121 capacitive touch sensor
What is the MPR121? The MPR121 is a tiny microchip formerly manufactured by NXP, now under Resurg...
Using a Sparkfun MP3 Trigger
What is the MP3 Trigger? The MP3 trigger is a board made by Sparkfun electronics that provides a ...
Controlling an actuator with TinkerKit Mosfet
What is the TinkerKit Mosfet? The TinkerKit Mosfet is a simple module for controlling devices lik...
Controlling an actuator with a N-channel Mosfet
What is Mosfet? A MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) is a type of transis...
Making sounds with a piezo
)# What is a piezo? 'Piezo' normally refers to an electrical component which can be used to make ...
Using a Sparkfun Sound Detector
What is the Sound Detector? The Sound Detector is a board made by Sparkfun electronics that provi...
How to send data to p5.js from Arduino
What is the Serial Communication? Serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at ...
How to connect a push button or switch
What is are push buttons/switches? Buttons and switches are a way of opening and closing a circui...
How to use a relay module
What is relay? A relay is a switch that opens or closes electrical circuits when activated by a s...
Using a HC-SR04 distance sensor
What is the HC-SR04? The HC-SR04 is a ultrasonic distance sensor, it uses ultrasound to send out ...
How to make Animation on NeoMatrix with Processing
Controlling NeoMatrix with Processing This tutorial is a follow-up to the last NeoMatrix animatio...
Using a Monochrome 1.3" 128x64 OLED display
What is the OLED monochrome display? The OLED monochrome display is a small (tiny) and high-reada...
Connecting a Potentiometer
What is a potentiometer? A potentiometer (often abbreviated to pot) is an electronic component wi...
How to connect a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR)
What is an LDR? An LDR or Light Dependent Resistor is a component which restricts how much power ...
How to use a Hall Effect Sensor
What is a Hall Effect Sensor? The hall effect sensor is a type of magnetic sensor which can be us...
How to use a rotary encoder
What is a rotary encoder? A rotary encoder is an electromechanical device that converts the angul...
Using the serial monitor and serial logger
What is serial communication? Serial communication is a type of communication between two device...
Using an MFRC522 RFID reader
What is an MFRC522 RFID reader RFID means radio-frequency identification. RFID uses electromagnet...
Using Arduino Leonardo to send USB MIDI data
One of the secrets of Arduino Leonardo is the in-built USB MIDI support. This is really useful fo...
How to send data to Processing from Arduino
What is the Serial Communication? Serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at ...
Making a Capacitive Touch Sensor
What is Capacitive Touch Sensing? Simply put, it is the touch sensing of all conductive materials...
Using a Soil Moisture Sensor
What is a Soil Moisture Sensor? The Soil Moisture Sensor measures soil moisture grace to the chan...
Using a Force Sensor
What is a Force Sensor? The Force Sensor senses the resistance value depending on how much it has...
Using L293D IC for motors
What is L293D? The L293D is a 16-pin Motor Driver IC which can control a set of two DC motors sim...
(MAC) Automatic printing with Automator
What is Automator? Apple’s Automator is a built-in Mac feature that allows users to easily “progr...
How to use a Bare Conductive Touch Board with Arduino
What is the Bare Conductive Touch Board? The Bare Conductive Touch Board is a board made by Bare ...
How to use a PIR sensor
What is a PIR sensor? PIR stands for Passive Infra Red and therefore a PIR sensor can etect movem...
How to use a Neopixel strip
What is Neopixel? Neopixel is a name given by Adafruit. Neopixel is addressable LEDs, meaning tha...
Using a Vibration Motor
What is a vibration motor? Vibration motor is a DC motor in a compact size that is used to inform...
Making Breathing Light with LEDs
What is a LED? LED (Light Emitting Diode) is a semiconductor light source that emits light when c...
How to control Arduino without using delay()
What is a delay()? delay() is a function that pauses the program for the amount of time (in milli...
How to control Arduino without using delay()
What is a delay()? We have a tutorial about delay() and how to code without using it. Here we wil...
Using a TCS34725 RGB Color Sensor
What is the TCS34725 RGB Color Sensor? The TCS3472 sensor provides a digital return of red, green...
How to use DFPlayer mini to play MP3
What is a DFPlayer? 11/2024 Update A new library added below. For people trying to avoid delay()...
How to make Animation on NeoMatrix
What is NeoMatrix? NeoMatrix is a grid lined up with mutiple Neopixel. Neopixel is addressable LE...
How to build a Simple Robot Arm with Servo Motor and Joystick
How to construct a robotic arm? A simple robotic arm is basically like a human arm which consists...
How to Program an ATtiny85 with an Arduino Uno
What is an ATtiny85? ATtiny85 is a 8-bit AVR microcontroller based on AVR enhanced RISC architect...
Using the MAX9814 mic amplifier
This Adafruit MAX9814 microphone amplifier allows you to easily detect sound. There are a total...
How to use Grove Serial Bluetooth v3.0
What is Grove Serial Bluetooth v3.0 Grove - Serial Bluetooth is an easy-to-use module compatible ...
How to use MatrixPortal M4
What is MatrixPortal M4 The MatrixPortal M4 is a development board created by Adafruit designed t...
Using MatrixPortal M4 for animation
How to use MatrixPortal M4 for animation We have another tutorial for setting up the MatrixPortal...
Using AVR ISP MKII to upload firmware to Arduino
What is AVR ISP MKII? The AVRISP mkII is a USB-based In-System Programmer (ISP) used to program A...
DFRobot Sensor Testing: HX711 Weight Sensor, Voice Recorder Module Pro, Speech Synthesis Module V2
We tested a few DFRobot sensors by following their tutorials. Before you jump into using these se...
Machine Learning with Physical Computing - TensorFlow Lite & Arduino Nano 33
What is TensorFlow? TensorFlow is an open-source machine learning framework developed by Google. ...